I, like many people, am always trying to justify my feelings. If I am stressed, I try to find the root of it. All too often, I attribute my stress to something superficial or circumstantial, looking for the quick-fix instead of seeing my stress as the symptom of a broader problem. More than a month ago I considered changing host families. I felt that I was a burden to them, and I wasn't sure I could stand one more morning of being roused out of my sleep by the shrieks of a two-year-old. And they were actually parenting me; like, did I really need a second family to tell me to clean my room, to set the table, to clean my dishes, to wake up on time, to dry the water that leaks onto the bathroom floor tile after I shower, to keep it down when I come home late at night? Plus, this family doesn't actually have to love me like my real parents do. So I thought I'd just avoid the problem all together and find someone completely negligent who would at least leave me alone.
You can probably see that my logic was backwards all along, but I needed my program coordinator to talk some sense into me before I could see my error. "My family is driving me crazy," I told her, "and I'm thinking of moving out." "Okay Marie, we can certainly help you find new accomodations, but in my experience the student's living situation is the first thing that comes under attack when there's a bigger problem under the surface." And that's when I started crying, so I knew she had touched on something true. Switching families seemed like the immediate solution, but as my coordinator explained later in our session, I would expect the new arrangement to fix all my problems, and then be even more devastated when my familiar adjustment issues came surging back. The act of wrongly attributing my unhappiness to my host family caused the distance between us to grow, but overcoming it was certainly more rewarding than finding a new familiy. And now that I'm here emotionally and physically, I couldn't imagine being with anyone else.
My question now is, what do you do when the feelings and their respective causes are changing and confused? When the distinction between your life and your experiences, and the events of the nation and the people around you is increasingly blurred. Argentina lost a much loved ex-president on Wednesday morning, October 27, the same day as the national census that takes place once every ten years. Everyone was already at home, waiting to be counted, when the news broke and their phones started ringing. By Wednesday night thousands of people had gathered at the Plaza de Mayo, and by Thursday evening more than 25 city blocks of people (in addition to the thousands of people who had already passed through) waited to pay their respects to the body of Nestor Kirchner in La Casa Rosada.
Throughout Thursday, Christina Kirchner, Argentina's current president and the late Nestor's wife, remained by the casket as the multitudes passed through. Many Argentinians were crying or shouting, some gave impassioned speeches in their few moments close to the casket, and others threw their fists into the air or blew kisses to Christina, sending her strength. During the live TV coverage of Thursday's procession, an announcer commented that the women on the scene seemed particularly affected, he imagined, because they were putting themselves in Christina's place. The huge turnout of youth at the La Casa Rosada was also remarked upon, promising a future of (continued) political activism. This morning, the funeral caravan will have to inch it's way through the tightly packed crowds lining the streets between La Casa Rosada and the airport, where the ex-president's body will be taken to Rio Gallegos, near his birthplace. Both an homage to a political figure who represented the popular classes and led the country to economic recovery after the crisis of 2001; and a testament to the obligatory voting system that demands some level of political involvement, the massive amount of Argentines present to pay their respects to the ex-president is incredible to witness.
The death of the ex-president completed the trio: two older family members and the former president of Argentina. So when I passed a group of people gathered around an accident on Wednesday afternoon-a motorbike overturned, a few cars on the sidewalk, medics trying to revive a man lying still on the street-what might have been an anonymous tragedy on any other day felt like a sure sign the world was coming to an end. Deaths can't come in fours. Or maybe that's only the rule for celebrities, but it's like when the universe knows you've detected a pattern in the way it operates, it upturns everything just so you remember that it's in control.
What an odd time for my parents to be visiting. They're getting a powerful glimpse of Argentinian culture, but far from home and out of touch at a critical time for our family. "The one good thing about us being here," said my dad after receiving sad news from the states, "is that we're together." Which is the scariest thing when I consider the future of my own life, on a small scale, and on a much larger scale, that of Christina and Argentina. And how you can be expected to continue representing yourself in the truest way possible when you are apart from the people that make you whole.
